Tuesday, February 12, 2013

India’s Compass on Terror is Faulty

Kanwal Sibal

(Member, VIF Advisory Board)

Afzal Guru’s hanging shows the ineptness with which our political
system deals with the grave problem of terrorism.The biggest challenge
to our security, and indeed that of countries all over the world that
are caught in the cross currents of religious extremism, is terrorism. Traditional military threats can be assessed on the basis of the size
of the armed forces, equipment and logistics available to the
adversary. A militarily weak country would normally hesitate to attack a
stronger one as defeat is never honourable and the price could be loss
of territory. A casus belli has to be established to negate any charge
of unprovoked aggression; the laws of war are applicable. The
international community can intervene through the UN or otherwise
against a state resorting to military aggression.ChallengeTerrorism has a different logic. It is asymmetric warfare by
non-state actors outside any law. The numbers involved are small and the
targets are unsuspecting and unprepared individuals in the street, in
public transport, hotels or restaurants or peaceful public spaces.
Suicide bombers and car bombs can cause substantial casualties
indiscriminately. Shadowy groups with leaders in hiding orchestrate
these attacks. The involvement of state institutions through groups
nurtured by them is on the basis of the practiced art of deniability.
The international community cannot even agree on the definition of
terrorism. The extraordinary challenge that terrorism poses to societies
has to be dealt with exceptional levels of alertness, discipline,
training of personnel, technical capacity, policing and organisational
response.India’s problem with externally supported terrorism is amongst the
severest that any country faces. Our next door neighbour has been long
using terrorism as an instrument of state policy. Even if some countries
like Libya were accused of supporting terrorism, the acts imputed to
them were not so blatant, wide-spread and persistent as those of
Pakistan-based terrorists against India. North Korea has been accused of
sporadic terrorist acts and Iran has supposedly targetted political
opponents abroad and supported terrorist groups attacking Israel, but
the Israeli-Arab confrontation has no parallel with the reasons for
Pakistan’s animosity towards India and North Korea and Iran have no
territorial claims that they seek to advance through terrorism. Pakistan
supports terrorism to destabilize India, to make governance in Kashmir
as difficult as possible, to nourish separatism there, to cause a
communal divide in India. It is also a consequence of the deepening
Islamisation of its society.To meet the enormity of such a threat India needs political consensus
and cohesion within the country. We have, instead, political bickering
and confused thinking in the civil society and sections of the media.
Afzal Guru was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court, his review
petition was rejected by the same court and yet the government took well
over 6 years to decide on his mercy petition. To claim that this delay
was not political in character is being disingenuous. Because the delay
was motivated by political considerations, the decision to hang him is
being inevitably attributed to political calculations. Action against
terrorists should not be vitiated by competition between government and
the opposition for political or electoral advantage. With those
responsible for killing Rajiv Gandhi and Beant Singh escaping hanging so
far, the question of selective decisions arises. Sections of our
mainstream press consider it appropriate to present Afzal Guru as a
victim of the Indian judicial and political system rather than a brutal
terrorist deserving condign punishment.TravestyThe dictum “better late than never” would have provided adequate
social catharsis if the delay in hanging was actually for reasons beyond
government’s control. If some members of the National Advisory Council
could plead with the President to save Kasab- a Pakistani who personally
killed hapless, innocent Indians- from the gallows, one can imagine the
resistance within the system to hang Afzal Guru. If the milk of human
kindness flows within our society for terrorists like Kasab, who were
actually waging a proxy war by Pakistan against us, it is hard to
imagine how we can steel our will and hone our organizational responses
to combat terrorism zealously.BlunderWe have voluntarily confused the debate over Pakistan’s culpability
for terrorism against us by declaring that both countries are victims of
terrorism. We have damaged our case further by not resisting Pakistan’s
attempts to equate the Mumbai terror attack with the attack on the
Samjhauta Express. By playing up of disclosures about terrorist attacks
by right wing Hindu extremists we are bracketting Pakistani abetted
terrorist attacks in India and local acts of terrorism that have nothing
to do with Pakistani territory. The previous Home Minister blurred the
focus on externally supported terrorism by highlighting domestic
religious extremism. His successor has scored a self-goal by speaking of
Hindu terrorism and RSS/BJP run training camps. The External Affairs
Minister, whose words have more echo outside because of his position,
has endorsed the Home Minister’s accusation, no doubt adding to the
confusion abroad about the ground realities.There is no parallel between the highly deplorable but isolated
terrorist activity of vengeful Hindus and the terrorist industry in
Pakistan and the Islamic world sustained by oil wealth and pernicious
religious thinking. There are no NGOs or Hindu preachers in India
publicly advocating religious violence against Pakistan on the basis of
religious texts. There is no state support for such activities. If we
think our domestic jockeying for political advantage can be insulated
from the external dimension of the terrorist threat facing us, we are
committing a costly error. We let the Kashmiri separatists, who are de
facto political accomplices of the terrorists, travel to Pakistan to
meet even the Army and ISI chiefs there without reaction. Our compass on
terrorism is faulty.